Monday, January 12, 2009

1 comment:

PurpleAvenger
said...

My kids are in MPS and have turned out just fine. The schools they attend certainly can, and do, talk about ethical issues - not bullying, for example, or treating others fairly - as some basic elementary-school level examples.

But my kids are in public school because I absolutely don't want them being indoctrinated about PaddyMac's god.

And that's the problem, isn't it - he wants schools to mention god, but just whose god? Krishna? the Buddha? Allah? Yahweh? spirits living in the trees?

And whether or not he thinks so, that can be oppressive. For example, when one of my kids was in 2nd grade, other kids at the lunch table (from certain churches that were pushing a very narrow kind of evangelical outreach) told him, on multiple occasions, that god was going to strike him dead at the school lunch table because he didn't believe in Jesus.

He tried, as best a 7 year old can, to tell them that they should believe what they wanted and let him believe what he wanted. They weren't buying.

Fortunately, it was only other kids - not school authority figures, which would have been much, much worse for him. To its credit, the school understood the concerns and his teacher made sure to talk about everyone's right to their own beliefs.

That's the way it should be. Paddymac doesn't like it - then he has an option. Keep his kids in religious school. But don't impose your religious beliefs on my kids.

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